A rare opportunity to hear four of the chamber works of Reza Vali, the composer dubbed “the Iranian Bartok”. Reza’s music is fast achieving recognition around the world with a recent CD of his music voted in the USA’s National Public Radio’s Top 10 Favorites for 2013.The program will also feature the world premiere performance of a work by the Sydney-based composer Moya Henderson, one which will resonate with many Australians as it remembers the Anzac experience. Bringing the evening’s music to life will be the well-known Sydney artists soprano Wendy Dixon, violinist Thomas Jones, pianist David Miller and flute player Laura Chislett Jones. Reza Vali will be a guest at the concert.

Reza Valiwas born in Ghazvin, Persia (Iran) in 1952. He began his music studies at the Conservatory of Music in Tehran. In 1972 he went to Austria and studied music education and composition at the Academy of Music in Vienna. After graduating from the Academy of Music, he moved to the United States and continued his studies at the University of Pittsburgh, receiving his Ph.D. in music theory and composition in 1985. Mr. Vali has been a faculty member of the School of Music at Carnegie Mellon University since 1988. He has received numerous honors and commissions, including the honor prize of the Austrian Ministry of Arts and Sciences, two Andrew W. Mellon Fellowships, commissions from the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Kronos Quartet, the Seattle Chamber Players, and the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music, as well as grants from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and the Pittsburgh Board of Public Education. He was selected by the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust as the Outstanding Emerging Artist for which he received the Creative Achievement Award. Vali's orchestral compositions have been performed in the United States by the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Seattle Symphony, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project, the Baltimore Symphony, the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, and Orchestra 2001. His chamber works have received performances by Cuarteto Latinoamericano, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, Kronos Quartet, the Seattle Chamber Players, and the Da Capo Chamber Players. His music has been performed in Europe, China, Chile, Mexico, Hong Kong, and Australia and is recorded on the Naxos, New Albion, MMC, Ambassador, Albany, and ABC Classics labels.

Moya Henderson is a world class and internationally trained composer who has devoted much of her career to exploring the soul and culture of Australia's 40,000 year history and bringing it to life in her works. Moya's compositions unite the high art of classical music composition with the heart of Australia: the grand organ with the Bondi tram bells and didgeridoo (Sacred Site); voice the orchestra with the poetry of Patrick White (Six Urban Songs); opera with the song of the butcher bird and echoes of Uluru (Lindy); a soprano voice with the ANZAC call (Anzac Fanfare). Few composers have uncovered the great country that is Australia in their works as Moya Henderson has. Verklärung: Ecstatic Exercises for Solo Cello will be released on CD in October. The soloist is Anna Martin-Scrase.